


- just carry me home tonight.

by chococchii



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Crush, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Repressed Feelings, Song: We Are Young (fun.), Songfic, but edd is a moron, i love them a lot i guess lol, okay i think i need to understand how to use ao3 tags, tom is a disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chococchii/pseuds/chococchii
Summary: So if by the time the bar closesAnd you feel like falling downI'll carry you home tonight.
Relationships: Edd/Tom (Eddsworld)
Kudos: 28





	- just carry me home tonight.

As Edd entered the bar, he got hit by a terrible whiff. His nose filled up with a smell of smoke and alcohol, his eyes almost watering for the stink.  
He squinted, trying to focus on his aim. And there it was – his head was leant down to the point of being almost hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt, but its color was unmistakable, that blue that resembled so much the depth of the ocean.  
«Tom!»  
Sitting at the counter, the guy slightly lifted his head, enough to let his spiky light hair get glimpsed. Edd took a sit next to him.  
Just as expected, Tom gripped in his fingers a glass of beer, which was most probably not even the first one, since it was still filled. Under the eyebags, almost as dark as his eyes, a pink shade covered the skin of his cheeks; his whole face was contracted into an intelligible grimace, a mixture of anger, of rage, of annoyance.  
«What the hell do you want from me? Can’t you see I’m trying to get drunk in peace?»  
«What’s that supposed to mean, “ _what the hell do you want from me_ ”?» Edd’s hackles raised. He hated that kind of scenario – he was never able to tell if Tom acted like this because of the bender starting or it was just out of bother. Which sure wouldn’t have been big news at all. «You left the house all of a sudden, without telling us literally anything! Hadn’t I known you for years I wouldn’t even know where to look for you!»  
«What should I have told you? That I was fucking fed up with watching Tord deliberately flirting with you without you saying anything about it? Please.» He spitted the Norwegian’s name like it was the worst existing insult, visible disgust wrinkling his nose. Even in his eyes, as black and empty as a bottomless hole, there was a weird gleam.  
Right now, in front of Edd, Tom was gobbling the rest of the beer in the glass with a little more than a single sip, but in his mind there was completely different stuff squirming. There were just _so many nonsense things_ in those words, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because of the alcohol that was already flowing through his body.  
«Wait– _do you mean Tord was flirting with me?_ »  
Stumped, Tom stared at him for a second, then he flung his head backward and burst up laughing. To Edd, it wasn’t clear if that was a hysterical laughter or if he was just amused by his reaction – which should have probably made him feel offended. «Are you a dumbass or what? Do you think that giving you a hit off the cigarette he was smoking until, like, a second before was a courtesy act or some kind shit?»  
Edd’s first instinct was to answer with a mere ‘yes’, but he preferred staying shut, also because things were clearly different to Tom’s eyes.  
He reminded the prior statement of his friend. A lamp switched on in his mind – or rather a boulder rolled straight on his head. Actually, there was a logical explanation to all of this, but it looked _absurd_. «Tom, do you mean… you felt _jealous_?»  
This time, the grin on his mouth had kind of a melancholic shade. It looked like the smile of a person being stabbed while he was about to win a war, being pushed off a cliff he just reached. The beer he poured on it made that smile even more bitter. «Jealousy? You mean that burn you feel when the next jerk gets someone’s attention and you can’t help but stay in the background wishing you were in their place? I don’t even know what jealousy is.»  
He talked slowly, almost as his own mind struggled elaborating that thoughts too. In that moment, Edd figured something that, despite him always knowing, he never really took any notice of. Even when he was drunk, even when the alcohol inhibited every cell of his body, _Tom wasn’t capable of opening up_. There was always something he kept from people’s eyes, including his own; any unwanted feeling would get locked up inside a secret box, hidden and impenetrable, and it would remain there, rotting – or growing. Becoming enormous, heavy, to the point of getting overwhelming, an unbearable burden, too big to keep carrying. And that was when the alcohol got in; it was supposed to be a help, a support to carry that weight, a wheel to push that ballast.  
And maybe it worked, too, but it’d never last forever. At some point, the magic faded, and Tom would find himself alone again, having to deal with the pain on his own again, and the cycle started once more. A vicious circle, an unescapable loop, a rail he couldn’t slow down on.  
_How could he never notice anything before?_ A haze of guilt alighted on Edd’s heart. They had lived together for years, and had known each other for even more – the basically grew up together. Even when the world would be too busy spinning to care for him falling behind, Tom would stay by his side, take him on and help him getting back in line.  
_What was it, that always outshined him?_ Or better – _who?_  
Then, the answer appeared, hitting him in the face like a brick.  
_Tord_. Tom was jealous of the way Tord flirted with Edd, was jealous of how Tord always caught his attention, was jealous of Tord always being his first choice. Tom was jealous of _Tord_.  
«Tom, are you… in love with me?»  
Silence fell above them. Tom didn’t reply, in any way. His fingers were crystalized on the glass, his leg stopped bouncing in a nervous twitch, even his chest rose and lower slowly. The lips were the only thing moving, shaking, like holding back something – words that were too heavy for his tongue, stuck in his throat, impossible to drag out. He placed his eyes on Edd for a second, fragile and transparent, as thin glass about to get broken, then they fell on the ground, and back on the counter in front of him, and there they stayed, still.  
That clearly was a yes.  
_What an idiot, he’d always been._  
Edd got down from the stool and stood in front of Tom, turning his back towards him.  
«What the fuck are you doing, now?»  
«Get on my shoulders.» he simply said, slightly turning his head. «I’m carrying you home.»  
«Idiot, I’ve got legs, I can go by…»  
«I’m sorry.» Edd interrupted him, his mouth filled with words he really needed to say. «About… everything. I’ve always been a moron, ignoring you and all. You were always by my side, but I never really acknowledged the effort you put. Forgive me. I promise it’ll be different. From now on, you’ll be the first thing to me.» _Thinking about it, that sentence didn’t come out exactly clear._ «I mean, like… uhm, boyfriends? Or… something like that?» _And with that a poetic and romantic confession got irremediably ruined._  
Luckily, Tom seemed to understand anyway. «Hey, man, if you don’t want to it’s oka…»  
«Of course I want to! Look, I know I’ve got a toaster brain, but I can think stuff like this!»  
Edd squeezed his eyes, staying still and looking at the floor, praying in his mind that the red color on his face faded quickly.  
His heart lost a beat, feeling Tom’s weight on his back, his arms around the boy’s neck. «Just carry me home, then.»  
Edd’s lips bent in a soft smile, while he held with his hands Tom’s legs around his waist. «Okay.»  


_So if by the time the bar closes_  
_and you feel like falling down_  
_I'll carry you home tonight._

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm, hello!! This is the first fanfiction i post here ahah. I've actually been having this on my computer for a while, but i'm not quite sure of why I'm posting it just now. Lol.  
> Yeah, the song is We Are Young, by fun. do You understand it's already almost a decade old?? This is so wild. How does even the concept itself of time work.  
> Uuuuh anyway!! I hope you enjoyed... this. see ya, i guess.  
> Love,  
> chococchii


End file.
